When the Watonga City Council met on Tuesday in regular session, it handled several topics brought to it by citizens.
In addition to the way garbage, brush and bulk trash such as furniture, building debris and old appliances are collected and disposed of, the council discussed whether it could or should change the cost basis for sewage and if levelized billing for electrical service was viable.
Council member Neal Riley asked the city’s manager and its accounting firm to find options for bulk trash collection whether by placing roll-offs where residents could deposit large items or construction debris on a pay-per-use basis or by changing the limb and shrub collection calendar to once per quarter from six times per year and using the extra collection dates for large trash pickup.
Riley also asked for the exploration of reopening of the city transfer station with an eye toward reclaiming trash collection duties that have been farmed out to Veterans Waste Solutions.
“What would it take to bring the transfer site up to code for household trash and one day we get our trash service back?” he clarified, while acknowledging that might mean the citizens could not use the site to dispose of their bulk waste and construction debris. “But let’s do a site survey and find out the costs.”
Former mayor Richard Hightower came to the council meeting as the public works authority to discuss the sewage rates. Currently, a resident pays to dispose of the same amount of water as the household purchases. That, Hightower said, is unfair to those who water lawns and gardens or fill swimming pools because that water does not go into the sewer system. He wondered if there could be some compromise that would accommodate those uses while still allowing the city to meet its debt obligation to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. The OWRB lent the city some $14 million to install the drinking water treatment facility and to improve the sewage treatment plant.
Dacia Phillips, with RS Meacham, the accounting firm, said that there were two options – install a separate water only meter or adjust the charges.
One of those solutions, suggested by Riley was to average the three lowest usage months – usually December, January and February – and base the rest of the year on that average.
Hightower said he was not opposed to that idea, but he hoped the city would find a way to reduce and stabilize the billing process, because as he said, “You guys are robbing us.”
Phillips said the city could look at its budget and determine whether that could be implemented or if it would take another budgeting cycle to make any changes. The budget, she said, is built on what the city has done in the previous 12 months and was based on anticipated revenue.
“We have to make sure the change will bring in enough to cover the budget,” she said.
“We have to make sure we can meet that debt service,” added Mayor Ryan Bruner. “So we won’t have an answer tonight.”
Riley also asked the accountants to determine whether the budget would bear average monthly billing for electricity. In that system, a household’s electrical usage is measured for a year, then averaged. That average is what is billed for the next 12 months, and any adjustment needed is made at the end of the year.
“I think we ought to look into it,” Riley said. "It lets people know what the bill is going to be.”
Phillips said she believes the software used by the city had that capability, but she would look into it and report back to the city council in November.